What a 14-year-old Instagram sensation and six-hitting superstar tells us about life and cricket | Barney Ronay

It’s that time of year again, a time of lists and countdowns, of soul-crushing AI brain-vomit ringed by adverts for miracle dental implants. In the spirit of the season the tech website Feedpost produced its own list on New Year’s Eve of the Top 100 Kid Influencers on Instagram And YouTube in 2025, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fine and definitely not strange or creepy [narrator’s voice: it is strange and creepy].Don’t think about end times. Don’t think about plagues of woodlice, flames licking at your feet

Green shoots no laughing matter as Ben Stokes insists fifth Ashes Test is ‘big game’

“I don’t think a groundsman has ever been under as much pressure as the guy here this week.” Ben Stokes had a smile on his face during his final pre-match press conference of this Ashes series at the Sydney Cricket Ground, as he responded to a question about the nature of the pitch for the fifth Test, which starts on Sunday.This is no laughing matter, however, for Adam Lewis, curator of the SCG, who has already been moved to defend the greenish tinge at the edge of the strip a day before a single ball has been bowled.In a surprising twist to Australia’s obsession with grass lengths in the week since England’s two-day victory in Melbourne, Lewis also described how he “shuts out the noise” while rolling, mowing and watering the strip. “I don’t scroll, I don’t have social media, so I try and keep all that negative energy away from me

Australia have been blessed by England’s disarray but can put own stamp on Ashes triumph | Geoff Lemon

If you had told Australian observers six months ago that their Test team in Sydney would involve Travis Head opening the batting with Jake Weatherald, Usman Khawaja at five, no Cameron Green, and some bowling combination of Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Todd Murphy and Brendan Doggett, they would have assumed disaster. Fifth Ashes Tests are the land of Scott Borthwick, of Boyd Rankin and Mason Crane: fringe players getting a glimpse at the wreckage after a series has crashed and burned.Khawaja was one such, in the debut reflected upon so much this week after his retirement announcement: the game when he replaced an injured Ricky Ponting after two Australian defeats by an innings, only to play in a third.Instead the Australians won this series comfortably before Christmas, despite a run of injury and health issues that should have made their campaign shambolic. Three of the Big Four bowlers are on the rehab list, replacement captain Steve Smith missed the series decider, Khawaja’s absence tipped the batting order upside down, and two key fit players in Green and Marnus Labuschagne have underdelivered

Gian van Veen denies Gary Anderson in epic to set up final against Luke Littler

It’s barely a couple of years since a 16-year-old Luke Littler and a 21-year-old Gian van Veen came through a 96-player field at Milton Keynes to qualify for the final of the world youth championship. There’s a charming photo of the pair of them with their arms around each other, silly little smiles plastered on to their silly little faces, the cutest high-street haircuts you’ve ever seen. Two kids at the very start of an unforgettable journey.Did either of them foresee, in those sepia-tinted days of August 2023, that the journey would convey them this far, this fast? I reckon Littler did. There’s never been much room for doubt and scepticism in there

PDC world darts semi-finals: Van Veen edges Anderson in classic to set up final with Littler – as it happened

Luke Littler will face Gian van Veen in Saturday’s world championship final after two contrasting semi-final wins on Friday.After losing the first set, Littler won six in a row to see off Ryan Searle 6-1, reaching his third final in three appearances. The world No 1’s focus remains on becoming a back-to-back champion, and not the record £1m prize.“It’s a massive prize, but it’s the trophy on the stage, it’s not the money,” Littler said. “Ever since the Grand Slam I have just said I want to go back-to-back

Eternal 31 makes Crawley the tallest small person in England’s Ashes pyre

It seems a little distant now, a little by-the-by, that this Ashes series was billed, among other things, as a referendum on Zak Crawley’s England career. The tour he was groomed for. The hidden sub-menace in his one-year central contract offer. Here was a chance to justify the high-wire walk of the last few years, to find an answer, perhaps, to the eternal question: is Zak Crawley actually any good?In the event other things have happened, other warning lights blinked, other elements of England’s collective failure creaked more urgently. Shoaib Bashir, the project spinner, plucked from social media for this tour, is in the 12 for Sydney